


Stranger

by joonscribble



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is Mostly Human
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonscribble/pseuds/joonscribble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Carlos leaves Night Vale to go to a conference, the town vanishes without a trace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Probably safe to say everything before "Lazy Day."
> 
> Disclaimer: All the recognizable Night Vale characters were created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.
> 
> Timeline: Set after "A Beautiful Dream" but before "Lazy Day." Also, for the purposes of this story, "Condos" is not part of the timeline yet.

There was a voicemail waiting for Carlos on his cell phone when he got out of the shower. He didn’t recognize the number of the missed call. These days there were only two numbers that ever popped up as an incoming call: the main line at his lab or Cecil’s cell phone. It had gotten to the point where Carlos would make bets with himself of at the end of the week which one took up the most space in his call log. But this one featured a California area code. So not a family member either.  
  
 _“Hi Carlos, it’s Mike Gustave. Hope things are well.”_  
  
Mike had been a researcher in Carlos’ lab. The vague memory of Mike fending off the purring orange mold they’d scraped out from the produce aisle of the Ralph’s drifted into Carlos’ mind. Mike had left a couple of months after that to go to a teaching position in San Diego.  
  
 _“I heard from Cynthia that you were coming out to Cali for the AAAS Meeting this year. It’ll be great to meet up. I feel like it’s been forever. Give me a call or shoot me an email with your schedule. Talk soon, bye.”_  
  
In the end, it hadn’t been the mold that seemed to believe it was an adorable kitten and deserving of a cuddle on Mike’s shoulder that had scared him off. It had been that plus the level of uncertainty saturated into every square inch of Night Vale that had prompted Mike to throw in the towel and email his CV out to any and every university in the country. Carlos had been sad to see him go. He’d like working with Mike who was a keen researcher, if a bit green.  
  
While he ate breakfast in his small kitchen, Carlos searched Mike’s name and was directed to his faculty webpage. On it was a CV that was significantly longer than when Carlos had last seen it when he’d hired Mike. There were at least 25 more articles under publications as well as a good number of conference presentations. Mike was now on tenure track at his school and had clearly made a success for himself since leaving Night Vale. Seeing Mike’s CV now, it suddenly dawned on Carlos that he hadn’t had any cause to even look at his own CV since arriving in Night Vale.  
  
In his voicemail Mike had said it felt like it had been forever since they’d last spoken. But in truth it had only been a year since Carlos had watched Mike floor it out of town in his rental jeep.  
  
Morning shifted into late morning as Carlos perused Mike’s publications for the past year, his oatmeal now cold and forgotten. A year and a half had passed by since he’d come to Night Vale and Carlos had barely noticed the time draining away.

* * *

  
As an overall principle, Carlos knew he had to publish. He wasn’t an academic so it was less “publish or perish” for him. But he knew the value of publishing as a contributing factor for grant applications and esteem in the scientific community. Before coming to Night Vale his list of articles had been impressive, though probably less so if one considered Carlos more or less lived in his lab space. But now there was an 18 month gap in his CV that stared at him like an open wound.  
  
“Carlos? Carlos?”  
  
A small hand passed by in front of his face, snapping Carlos out of his blank stare of the computer monitor. Cynthia Shin was standing next to him, holding what looked like a pair of clunky headphones.  
  
“What? I mean, yeah, hi, Cynthia,” Carlos caught up.  
  
She raised an eyebrow. “Hi, again.” She held up the headphones. “Josh has volunteered to try and get a soil sample this time.”  
  
It was Attempt #8 with the Whispering Forest. Despite multiple tests beforehand, all noise canceling headphones seemed to fail once anyone in their lab got to the forest to try and get a sample. During the last try, an overzealous Josh had tried for a branch and had nearly paid with his life for it. An attempt to record the compliments from the trees had resulted in several megabytes of static as did any attempt at videotaping. They’d yet to figure out why or even hypothesize on the why for that matter.  
  
 _How can you hypothesize anything when the laws of nature don’t work anymore? How can you get any results or even understand any results when nothing’s grounded in anything?_  Carlos wondered.  
  
“Carlos? Hello?”  
  
Carlos shook himself again, getting the feeling that Cynthia had been talking for awhile now. “Sorry, you said Josh and the soil sample?”  
  
Cynthia frowned. “You okay?”  
  
“Fine. Just…thinking.”  
  
“Well, we’re all thinking,” she commented, dryly. “You’re not worried about the lab, are you? We’ll be fine for a few days.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
In a paradoxical way, Carlos knew they would be fine. Fatality rates were always elevated in Night Vale but somehow the town already feel more unreal when compared to this conference in California. Carlos had decided to go because he had gone every year since obtaining his doctorate. But this was the first year he wouldn’t be presenting anything. Which meant that for the last year and a half Carlos had found nothing to present; nothing to present other than pure observation which meant very little and would mean even less when the observations sounded insane.  
  
 _“A floating cat lives in the men’s bathroom of the local radio station. It’s like the cat is enclosed in its own anti-gravity field. I don’t even have pictures though. Take my word for it.”_  
  
Looking around, Carlos saw the various sections of the lab that were busy with experiments dedicated to the oddities of the town. More or less all of them had yielded results which could only be named as inconclusive. Would it always be like this? Was it going to be another year, two, three, four and in the end all he could say would be the results were inconclusive?  
  
“So, I’m going to go ahead and give Josh the green light for the soil sample, okay?” Cynthia said.  
  
Carlos sighed, feeling already defeated about it. “Send Greg with him as insurance. Have Greg count to 500 and if Josh isn’t back by then, he’s going to have to get in touch with that depression group Teddy Williams put us in contact with for a search and retrieval.”  
  
Carlos wondered if he should be alarmed that the plan sounded rather logical to him. As it was, this entire day suddenly felt very pointless.

* * *

  
“Listeners, it’s that time again when we all open our mailboxes, sift through the usual contents of bills, magazines, baby teeth, and catalogs we never subscribed to in the first place, to find that one envelope holding the Sheriff’s Secret Police Annual Census. As you may already be aware, the Sheriff’s Secret Police are now under the new management of StrexCorp. As such, the guidelines for the census and its contents are a little different this year. We had Henrietta Slade, the new citizen liaison for the Sheriff’s Secret Police, come in yesterday to explain the changes.  
  
Previous questions of ‘Where do you see yourself in 10 years?’ and ‘If you could be anyone in the whole world, who would it be?’ she said have now been replaced with ‘live with your emotionally abusive parent for 7 years straight or dentist visit for 2 years straight?’ and ‘Spiders or clowns?’  
  
Henrietta also added that there would be no extensions this year. All residents of Night Vale must fill out the census and return them via the included self-addressed stamped envelope in one week. After bleeding, sweating and crying onto it first, she reminded us. There will be no exceptions. If you live in Night Vale, please make every effort to complete and return them. For your own sake. No seriously, for your own sake, please fill these out,  _please_ , she pleaded before hurrying away, frantically wiping at her face.  
  
Speaking of residency, I don’t know if you remember…I may have mentioned it once or twice earlier this week, but Night Vale’s most cherished outsider, my boyfriend Carlos, will be leaving us for a little while. As a scientist it is his duty to attend conferences in order to meet other scientists to discuss the latest in discoveries and do experiments. Obviously, Carlos must fulfill his role. And I must follow the sage advice once given to me by Old Woman Josie who said that love is like a bird. If you hold it light, it will fly. If you hold it tight, it will peck and scratch at you and you’ll be forced to open your hand and the bird will leave and you’ll have a bloody, possibly infected hand. My point is, Carlos will be leaving tomorrow morning and I will miss him terribly, Night Vale.”

* * *

  
By nature Carlos was a curious person. It was a quality that served him well as a scientist in that once an idea or thought or question entered his mind, he would work on it until he had whittled it down to the truth.  
  
“An answer is out there. It’s the job of science and us as scientists to find the answer and understand it,” his old biochemistry professor had once said. Sitting in that huge amphitheatre, a freshman in college then, surrounded by mostly juniors and seniors, it had been less a revelation for Carlos and more an articulation of what he’d always known growing up. The world was to be studied in order to be understood, the application of the scientific method ferreting out its secrets and untangling its conundrums.  
  
Unfortunately, this method was less successful for Carlos in his personal life. At their least generous, people who knew him would tell Carlos he was like a dog with a bone; refusing to let things go until he was satisfied with some sort of answer. It had been the cause of death for many of his relationships.  
  
“You need a fucking scientific phenomenon, not a partner,” his last boyfriend had said to him as a parting shot shortly before Carlos had moved to Night Vale.  
  
Where he had met Cecil.  
  
As people went, Cecil was probably the closest to a scientific phenomenon as one was going to get. And why Carlos had filled up an entire notebook with observations he’d made of the Voice of Night Vale and the strangeness that seemed to surround him specifically. When he’d shared this information with Cecil very early into their dating, he had done so in the spirit of honesty and had offered to stop studying him. Cecil wasn’t a lab rat, Carlos knew. It wasn’t terribly respectful.  
  
What Cecil had taken away from it was that Carlos had a notebook that was dedicated to Cecil.  
  
“Carlos, that’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me! Do you really believe I’m interesting enough for science?” Cecil’s giddiness over the notebook had practically flooded out of the ends of his hair, he had been so pleased.  
  
It always struck Carlos as ironic that as much of a mystery as Cecil was in terms of basic things like family history, there was never anything mysterious about him in terms of his present state. Whatever Cecil was feeling and most likely thinking at the moment tended to be broadcast all over his features before being broadcast all over the airwaves. Particularly when Cecil was happy, the emotion practically vibrated out of every pore of his body. As someone who never found it easy to read people correctly, Carlos was immensely grateful that Cecil was like a reading a book with an unusually large font size.  
  
Which was how Carlos knew Cecil was putting in an effort to look cheerful when clearly he wasn’t on Carlos’ last night in Night Vale before flying out.  
  
“I thought of another one,” Cecil said as he added some salt to the salmons being prepped. He had insisted on making Carlos dinner, meaning Carlos was left to sit at Cecil’s kitchen island with a glass of wine. “I won’t miss our lunch plans getting canceled because your lab gets put under quarantine every other week.”  
  
Carlos murmured his agreement.  
  
Cecil had suggested when Carlos had first announced their pending five day separation that they each come up with various things they wouldn’t miss related to the other and save all the things they would miss about each other for when Carlos came back. Carlos had been initially wary that this was some sort of passive aggressive test but Cecil had plunged into it with the sort of enthusiasm that was too obvious to be anything but genuine.  
  
“I won’t miss hearing how upset you get when you get those Mountains Exist pamphlets,” Carlos replied.  
  
"You mean propaganda."  
  
Shoving the salmon steaks into the oven and setting the timer, Cecil joined him at the island. He poured himself a glass of wine as well, using his free hand to fondly stroke the grey streaking the sides of Carlos’ head. “I won’t miss worrying about your safety all the time.”  
  
“I’m not helpless,” Carlos replied, sounding more annoyed than he meant to.  
  
“Carlos, just last week you nearly forgot about Street Cleaning Day _again_ ,” Cecil pointed out. “I know you think it’s harmless but I keep telling you-“  
  
“I know, I know, it’s different here,” sighed Carlos.  
  
Cecil frowned, his hand not stopping the stroking motion. “What’s wrong? Is it the trip?”  
  
“Yes and no. I realized today that I haven’t done anything for 18 months.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I’m about to go to this conference and for the first time not have anything to say. My colleagues have spent the last year publishing, gathering meaningful data,  _working_. And I’ve just been…here.”  
  
“But you work all the time,” said Cecil, clearly confused. “You’ve been here studying the town.”  
  
“Nothing I’ve studied about the town can be translated to anything meaningful out there,” said Carlos. He waved his wine glass toward the kitchen window. “Out there it’s just strange phenomenon that hasn’t been captured by any sort of quantifiable data that can be organized. Even if it could be, I’m not sure anymore how I’m supposed to analyze it seeing as how physics and even math doesn’t work the same way here.” Draining the last of his wine, Carlos stared at the remnants clinging to the sides of glass. “I’ve wasted an entire year and a half.” The stroking motion stopped. Carlos looked up as Cecil withdrew his hand to wrap it around his own glass.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
It was incredible how much emotion could get packed into one word.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Carlos apologized, hastily reaching across the island. “That was a lousy thing to say. I don’t mean that everything was a waste. It’s just my work. It hasn’t gone the way I thought it would and I’m not used to not having that.”  
  
The smile on Cecil’s face was tentative which somehow made Carlos feel worse. “I understand, Carlos,” replied Cecil. “Your work is important to you. I’ve always known that.”  
  
“If another year goes by like this, my chances of getting another grant will be impossible,” said Carlos. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to move?”  
  
He had said it as a half joke but it was clear the other half of it was deadly serious.  
  
Cecil blinked. “Move? You mean, like, out of this apartment into…another one with…other things?” Something akin to excitement rippled across his face.  
  
“Well, sort of. I meant move to a different town.”  
  
“Leave Night Vale?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
There was a momentary pause before Cecil laughed, like Carlos had played a prank on him. “Carlos, that’s insane! I can’t leave.”  
  
“You mean you literally-“  
  
“No, obviously, I can leave,” said Cecil, rolling his eyes in fond exasperation. “I’ve gone on trips before.”  
  
Carlos didn’t want to argue about Cecil’s supposed vacation to Europe right now. “Haven’t you ever thought about living somewhere that isn’t Night Vale?”  
  
“Why would I?”  
  
“Because there’s an entire world out there. You can live in a place where pens aren’t illegal and eating wheat won’t kill you and every minute of your day isn’t recorded by some badly hidden police officer.”  
  
“Sounds a little dangerous, don’t you think?” said Cecil.  
  
“Really?  _That_ sounds dangerous?” Carlos demanded.  
  
“Carlos, I can’t just stop being the Voice of Night Vale. It doesn’t work that way.”  
  
“Your predecessor did. Leonard Burton? He retired, you said.”  
  
Cecil looked distinctly uncomfortable and something twisted a little in Carlos’ chest. He hadn’t listened that day when Cecil had played his old tape but he’d heard about the broadcast afterwards. That entry alone had taken up pages in Carlos’ notebook about Cecil. “It’s not the same thing. Leonard…well, I don’t know actually what it was for Leonard or much about him in general actually. But I know I can’t just stop.”  
  
“I’m not asking you to stop doing radio,” said Carlos. “But can you think a little about maybe doing radio elsewhere? With me.”  
  
“Oh, Carlos,” said Cecil. “I’d love to follow you anywhere. But I can’t. Being the Voice of Night Vale is what I am. I wouldn’t ever ask you to stop being a scientist.”  
  
“At the rate I’m going, it’ll happen pretty soon if I stay here,” Carlos replied, darkly. “The reality is that research projects have to end at some point. Either because it’s a complete bust or the truth gets uncovered. When that does, I’m going to have to leave Night Vale.”  
  
“Reality is a matter of opinion.”  
  
“It’s really not.”  
  
“See? That’s what I mean.”  
  
“Cecil, seriously,” said Carlos. “If you can’t leave Night Vale and if I can’t stay then what happens?”  
  
Cecil looked stricken by the question, his mind clearly working to find some sort of loophole in the query and finding none. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know at all. I only know I would miss you if you weren’t here.”  
  
“And I’d miss you if you stayed here.”  
  
Cecil smiled, wanly. “Oops, we were saving those until you came back.”  
  
“Right. Yeah. Until I came back.”  
  
The oven timer chimed.

* * *

  
They ate dinner amidst forced, light conversation after which Carlos decided to go back home, citing last minute packing he still had to do.  
  
Carlos kissed Cecil at the door, pouring his unspoken apology for having ruined their last night into it. When they broke apart but remained wrapped around each other, he heard Cecil whisper, “I won’t miss missing you all the time while you’re gone.”  
  
The drive back felt long.  
  
In an ideal world, Carlos would almost prefer there be no grant proposals and esteem measured by publication. Only experiments, questions, and the joys of discovery. That would be enough for him. But he didn’t live in an ideal world.  
  
By the time Carlos was done packing, he estimated it was past midnight. He got ready for bed, knowing he’d have to be up in a few hours to drive to Phoenix to catch his flight out from there. But rather than sleep, Carlos found himself staring up at the ceiling. He considered texting Cecil goodnight but thought against it in fear he might instead text some other loaded question because apparently his brain tonight had decided to lose its filter. What would they do if Carlos were to leave? Because surely one day he would have it.

* * *

  
Whatever it was that had woken Carlos up, it certainly hadn’t been his alarm.  
  
Pale morning light filtered into his bedroom as he blearily grabbed at his phone to check the time and realized the battery had drained out during the night. Cursing, Carlos hurried to get ready, stumbling to the bathroom.  
  
By the time he was outside and loading his car, the fog he felt from the disorienting wake up had yet to lift. The morning weather was odd, even for a town where weather could be music and music could be the sound of hail falling on rooftops. It was simultaneously humid and chilly, reminding Carlos of what it felt like to wake up in a cold sweat. Quickly he shoved his shoulder bag into the passenger seat and turned on the ignition, turning on the A/C and then the heater and then switching to the A/C again before giving up and turning them both off. Plugging in his cell phone to recharge en route, he pulled out of the driveway.  
  
It was early, the earliest Carlos had ever been up since arriving in Night Vale. The streets were completely empty, not even a stray officer in sight. It only added to the uncomfortable sensation that nagged at Carlos that he was leaving behind the last year and a half of his life without telling anyone, simply slipping away like a criminal while everyone else slept. Which was ridiculous. The entire town knew he was leaving today, where he was going, and what time he’d be flying out thanks to Cecil broadcasting about it every day for the past week in a lamenting countdown. Everyone knew he was leaving. And everyone knew he would be coming back.  
  
Driving down a neighborhood lined with small, identical houses, Carlos stopped at a red light and fiddled with his cell phone. There was no indication it was charging properly or if his phone had simply decided to dig its heels into the ground and refuse to work like everything else in this place that refused to see reason.  
  
 _“We all see reason, listeners. But none of us see the same reason,”_  Cecil had once said. And like everything else Cecil said, it made sense but managed to spiral wildly out of proportion.  
  
Universal truths, Carlos had wanted to shout to the skies. There were some things everyone had to see and must see as the same thing. A pure truth that wasn’t open for interpretation or vulnerable to negotiation. It just was.  
  
The light turned green.  
  
As he drove past the houses, Carlos saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. A man was pushing back the lacy drapes that covered a window. No, not a man. Just a man’s hand. Even from the car, Carlos could make out the dark hair covering the back of the hand and a flash of silver on the pinky, reflecting back the pale morning light. Megan sat perched on the sill and Carlos got the distinct feeling she was looking at him. The fingers were curved inward, tense as if the hand was on the verge of raising herself to either ask a question or give some sort of warning. But instead, she merely pushed herself back onto her wrist and wiggled her fingers, a gesture of goodbye.  
  
Carlos waved back as Megan let the drapes fall back.  
  
After a few minutes, the town border sign came into view that proclaimed “YOU ARE NOW LEAVING NIGHT VALE.” Underneath the impressively large, foreboding block letters in parentheses was, “Hey, you made it! Wow!” in slightly friendlier script.  
  
Carlos sped up the car as he approached the border, half expecting some sort of cataclysmic event such as a crater opening up at the last moment. Or a torrential downpour of dead animals, denting the roof of his car and burying him under fur and bones. But as he passed over the town line, the most he got was a small cloud of dust courtesy of his tires.  
  
He had exited Night Vale. All that was ahead was the rest of the world.

 

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers: Probably safe to say everything before "Lazy Day."
> 
> Disclaimer: All the recognizable Night Vale characters were created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.
> 
> Timeline: Set after "A Beautiful Dream" but before "Lazy Day." Also, for the purposes of this story, "Condos" is not part of the timeline yet.

Carlos was dreaming.  
  
He was inside what could pass for the NVCR station. That would make sense because across from where he stood, separated by a window was Cecil. He was sitting in front of his microphone, speaking, the On Air sign lit up above his head. Carlos couldn’t hear what he was saying nor could he make out the words from reading his lips. But Cecil had that slightly blank, benign look on his face as he murmured into the microphone. It was possibly the traffic report. Carlos tapped on the window, trying to get Cecil’s attention. But Cecil continued to talk soundlessly, giving no indication he saw Carlos. Suddenly frustrated, Carlos knocked harder, the glass thick and bruising his knuckles as he continued to bang on it. Cecil nattered on, oblivious.  
  
Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, Carlos saw something. A flash of something grey and big. Something was breathing against Carlos’ cheek, its breath hot and unpleasant. He wanted to turn his head to look but was paralyzed at the fear of what he might see. Instead, he continued to hit against the glass, this time making a fist to pound on it, willing Cecil to look up and _see him_.  
  
But Cecil merely spoke on and on while whatever was next to Carlos breathed and breathed, moving closer until he could almost feel its teeth against his skin.  
  
The jolt of the plane landing on the tarmac shook Carlos from his sleep. His body jerked involuntarily, nearly smacking the person sitting next to him. His brain seemed to still be in some state of paralysis, even as Carlos felt something akin to a minor panic grip him. It took him a few seconds to remember what had happened. He was in San Francisco. For the conference. Right.  
  
He’d driven to the airport in Phoenix to catch his flight, the drive uneventful. It had been his plan to do some work on the plane but had realized much too late that his laptop had also been drained of all battery power. Much like his phone which had failed to charge at all during the car ride. So he’d ended up sleeping the two hour flight instead, though he hardly felt refreshed. If anything, the sleep seemed to have alerted his body to how stiff and cramped it felt.  
  
After deplaning, the first order of business was to get a sizeable cup of coffee at a tiny bakery kiosk. Day old looking muffins were lined up on a tray, making for a rather sorry sight. But they were bread products and after almost a year without, Carlos found himself ordering three and eating two of them standing by the kiosk with what was probably a blissful expression on his face.   
  


* * *

  
  
Carlos was halfway to the hotel in his rental car when his cell phone rang, causing him to nearly drive off the road. Pulling over, he answered.  
  
“Carlos, hey!”  
  
“Mike?”  
  
“Did you just get in?”  
  
“Nearly.” The GPS helpfully told Carlos he was 14.7 miles away from his destination. “I’m driving to the hotel now.”  
  
He had emailed Mike his schedule and they’d planned on meeting up before going to the first round of lectures.  
  
“Great, I’m in the lobby now,” replied Mike. “Call me when you get settled in. We can grab an early lunch at the hotel and you can tell me all about Tonopah,” he said, cheerily.  
  
“Sure, I’ll be there in abou- wait, what?”  
  
“See you soon!”  
  
 The line went dead. Carlos stared at his phone and saw that the battery display was at 100 percent.  
  


* * *

  
  
Last time Carlos had seen Mike Gustave, he had looked like the sort of person to be constantly mistaken for an overgrown boy scout. By the time he had left Night Vale, Mike resembled more an overgrown boy scout who had seen one too many bears. Now Mike himself looked like a big, friendly, well-fed bear.  
  
“I can’t get enough of the food in San Diego,” Mike said. “Eileen’s always trying to get me to eat healthier. I told myself I’d cheat a little on this trip but she’s gotten inside my head now,” he explained, gesturing to his salad. Carlos tried to hold onto his table manners as he dug into his pasta after grabbing half the offered bread. Wheat never tasted so amazing.  
  
Mike continued on in between bites about the work he was now doing, picking Carlos’ brain for directional ideas on the research project he was putting together. Time flew by as Carlos listened to Mike’s questions and comments, offering his own as his mind wrapped itself around Mike’s theories and organizing the needed experiments to test them. It felt good. More than good, it felt wonderful to be able to communicate like this again. To be able to draw upon the laws of nature and be confident that they were stable and predictable. And to have someone who understood respond in kind.  
  
It was only when Mike finally asked, “So how about you?” that Carlos realized he hadn’t even thought about Night Vale since landing in San Francisco.  
  
“Well, there’re a few experiments we have running,” Carlos hedged. He felt a wave of embarrassment at having to discuss the utter static nature of his work.  
  
“Are you doing any follow ups on the gravity pockets you wrote about?” asked Mike. “I’m seeing something similar where I am so I was curious if the phenomenon might actually be spreading.”  
  
Carlos frowned. “Wrote about?”  
  
“Yeah. That article you wrote for the AAAS journal. I thought you were presenting it at the conference.”  
  
“Um…I definitely didn’t write any article for the AAAS,” said Carlos.  
  
Mike snorted as he stabbed at his salad. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only Carlos Delgado with a lab in Tonopah.”  
  
Their earlier brief phone conversation came back to Carlos. “Mike, my lab’s in Night Vale.”  
  
“Where?”  
  
“Night Vale. You know the place you _lived in_ for six months?”  
  
Mike gave him a confused look. “Did the town change its name or something?”  
  
“No, it’s always been Night Vale. The town where nothing works properly and things keep trying to kill you?”  
  
“Wasn’t Tonopah listed as like the top safest town in America?” Mike questioned.  
  
Carlos knew he wasn’t the best at reading people and he stared at Mike, trying to discern if this was some elaborate joke; a ploy to unnerve Carlos as a hilarious throwback to their time together in a town that was largely certifiable. But Mike only blinked back at him, his expression now growing a little concerned.  
  
“Mike, you lived in Night Vale. The lab was there. You left because the town was too bizarre for you.”  
  
“Uh…if by bizarre you mean too boring.”  
  
Carlos tried to think. Maybe something had happened to Mike since leaving Night Vale. Something that made him forget. Is this what whoever ran the town do to anyone who moved away? But Carlos distinctly remembered getting an email back from Mike after he had sent him his schedule that had referenced Night Vale. That had only been yesterday. Surely…  
  
As calmly as he could, Carlos put down his utensils.  
  
“Carlos?” asked Mike. “You okay?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Carlos answered, forcing himself to smile. “I just…I need to check in with Cynthia about something. I promised I would. I’ll be right back.” He hurried toward the restrooms, away from Mike’s gaze.  
  
Standing by a stack of high chairs, Carlos pulled out his phone. Going to his contacts, he searched under C. Right between Carol Buchan and Cynthia Shin where he should have been was not Cecil Palmer. He ignored the pasta that was now turning into rocks in his stomach and tapped in the phone number he’d memorized.  
  
 _“Your call could not be connected as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.”_  
  
Carlos checked his texts. Hardly anyone texted him apart from Cecil who had a tendency to text him daily with various comments, questions and the odd youTube video of a cat to share. But now in his phone there was nothing. Not a single text history other than a few from various members of his lab.  
  
He wasn’t going to panic. He certainly wasn’t going to panic standing outside of the men’s room while Mike Gustave ate a salad several feet away. There was some sort of explanation for this. He called Cynthia.  
  
“Cynthia Shin speaking,” she answered in three rings.  
  
“Cynthia, it’s Carlos.”  
  
“Carlos, hi! How was your flight?”  
  
 “Fine. It was fine. How are things at the lab?”  
  
“I told you not to worry about us,” Cynthia said, exasperated. “Everything’s running smoothly. Josh got that soil sample so we’re doing tests on it now.”  
  
That all matched up with their last conversation, dispelling much to Carlos’ anxiety. He breathed out a small sigh of relief. “That’s great. And Josh is okay, right? The forest didn’t do anything to him?”  
  
“Uh…no? The forest was perfectly civil?” answered Cynthia, clearly confused.  
  
Carlos froze. After a beat, he forced himself to talk as nonchalantly as possible. “Have you listened to Cecil’s show today?”  
  
“What show?”  
  
“The community radio program. We have it on every day.”  
  
“I didn’t even know Tonopah had a community radio show.”  
  
The sound of his own heartbeat filled Carlos’ ears. “Night Vale,” he practically strangled out. “You mean Night Vale.”  
  
“What’s Night Vale?”  
  
“Cynthia, if you and Mike planned this then good job. Really funny, you definitely got me. Did you somehow get my phone to erase Cecil’s contact information too?” He had tried for levity but it came out sounding more desperate.  
  
“Who are you talking about?” asked Cynthia, her tone matching Mike’s face from earlier.  
  
“Where are you?” Carlos demanded. “Right now. Where are you?”  
  
“The lab,” Cynthia answered. “Carlos, are you feeling alright? You sound-“  
  
“The town. I mean, the town.”  
  
“I’m in Tonopah. Where the lab is. Seriously, Carlos, are you okay? You’re starting to scare me.”  
  
Carlos hung up.  
  
His hands shaking, he scrolled through the rest of his contacts. All of the numbers he had stored in there related to the town, Big Rico’s, John Peters, Teddy Williams, Cecil’s cell phone as well as the NVCR station numbers were all gone. A voicemail from Cecil that Carlos had saved a few weeks back was also gone.  
  
It was getting harder to breathe as the temperature the in the restaurant seemed to go up several degrees. Carlos called up his emails on his phone. He scrolled frantically through them, seeing ones from Cynthia, Mike, Josh, other members of his lab. But none from Cecil or any to Cecil.  
  
It was like he and all of Night Vale had been cut out of Carlos’ life all together.  
  
TBC


	3. Chapter 3

_Hey Carlos!_

_I’m so glad you’re coming. It’s been ages since we talked. I know I’ve said Tonopah is the cradle of boredom but I do miss the team. Looks like we’ll both be getting to the hotel around the same time. Let’s have some lunch before and catch up. I have your number so I’ll give you a call when I get there._

_See you soon,_

_Mike_

 

**

 

_Carlos,_

_I ran the models we talked about with the new readings we gathered on Thursday. P value is at .003! Significance! Sweet, sweet significance! See attached results._

_-Josh_

 

**

 

_Hi Carlos,_

_Thanks so much for Alma’s birthday present! She’s sort of preoccupied with trying to stuff the blocks in her mouth right now (as you can see in the photo) but once she learns her alphabet, she’ll be arranging the periodic table building blocks in no time and have her favorite uncle to thank for being the smartest kid in her class!_

_Love,_

_Ana_

 

**

 

_Dear Dr. Delgado,_

_On behalf of the Bridgemark Society’s Grants Committee, we are pleased to inform you that your proposal has been selected for this year’s Marshall C. Bridgemark research grant. The grant provides-_

 

**

 

Carlos leaned back in his chair and tried to breathe normally. Next to him, his cell phone buzzed again to indicate the fourth text from Mike who had looked more than a little concerned when Carlos had made hasty excuses to run back to his hotel room. That had been three hours ago.

 

Like his cell phone, his laptop which he had left charging in his room was working perfectly now. Only its contents were completely wrong. All of the notes he had been compiling for the past year and half about Night Vale had vanished, now replaced by notes about Tonopah. Even old copies of the research grant proposal he had put together to come to Night Vale in the first place had now been replaced with a proposal to study shifting soil densities in Tonopah. Where ever Carlos looked, his saved documents, even his Recycle Bin, there was not a trace of Night Vale.

 

Similarly, all the emails in his inbox were devoid of anything remotely related to Night Vale. All research related correspondence spoke about Tonopah and any personal emails Carlos had ever exchanged with anyone at Night Vale were gone.

 

He had done searches on the Internet for the town and was asked politely by Google if he had meant “New Vale” rather than “Night Vale” as New Vale Sportswear could provide him with his every sporting wardrobe need. In a somewhat panicked moment, Carlos had searched for Desert Bluffs which also turned up nothing of use.

 

Carlos studied the emails again in his inbox. How was it possible that something could look so foreign and so familiar at the same time? Even though these emails had never been the ones to reach him at the timestamps they claimed, he knew they weren’t faked. These were emails from Mike, his sister, and Josh. They felt like the emails they would write. A dig through his Sent folder turned up dozens of emails Carlos had no memory of writing and yet he could recognize the writing as his own. Words he frequently used, turns of phrases he constantly went to. Even all his scientific notes were in his writing style.

 

They were his. And yet not. Because he had never applied for the Bridgemark grant. He had dreamed of doing so but had never gotten the results needed at Night Vale to even entertain expanding the research. He had never bought Alma periodic table building blocks for her second birthday because time didn’t work properly in Night Vale and he had missed the date. Ana still hadn’t responded to any of his apologetic phone calls because his sister held a gold medal in holding grudges.

 

Picking up his cell phone, Carlos dismissed the texts from Mike and dialed Cecil’s number again.

 

_“Your call could not be connected as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.”_

 

Carlos scrubbed his face, raking his hands through his hair as he tried to work through this logically. For all intents and purposes, Night Vale was gone. There was no trace of it to the point where even his research team was in a completely different town.

 

Hypotheses?

 

H1: Something or someone has made Night Vale vanish.

H0: Night Vale has not vanished. It never existed.

 

If Carlos was to go with the null hypothesis, he would have to entertain the idea that he himself had had some sort of psychotic break. He had somehow hallucinated the last year and half of his life. No, that was ridiculous. Carlos knew himself enough to know that he wasn’t crazy. In fact, his belief in his own sanity is what had helped him survive his first year in Night Vale.

 

_I didn’t IMAGINE Night Vale. I didn’t imagine Cecil. I’m not creative enough to imagine someone like Cecil._

 

So that left the idea that Night Vale had been taken away somehow from the fabric of reality.

 

Carlos needed data.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Mike again.

 

“Fine, yeah, sorry about earlier,” Carlos apologized. “Just an emergency thing back at my lab. It’s all fine now. Just fine.”

 

Carlos clutched his drink and willed Mike to believe it. Luckily, he still lived in a world where a simple explanation was vastly preferred to a more complicated one.

 

Carlos had managed to miss all the afternoon lectures but had seized upon the dinner and drinks portion of the conference to try and get to know the person he apparently was. Judging by the strangers who approached him after seeing his nametag, he was someone quite in demand.

 

“Dr. Delgado, such a pleasure to meet you in person,” said a woman nametagged Gloria Shipman. “I wanted to get your thoughts on Dr. Penjali’s lecture. He used a version of the modeling you employ with your research and…”

 

For the next hour, Carlos had the strange experience of people referencing work he had often thought about or considered during his time in Night Vale but hadn’t yet put into practice. But apparently he had. And everything had gone very much in his favor. It was like he was living the life he had planned on rather than the one he actually had.

 

“Dr. Koren told me the wonderful news about the Bridgemark grant,” Gloria Shipman continued. “I hear the preliminary readings in Iceland are incredibly promising. Do you have an idea of when you’d be moving your team there?”

 

Iceland. He was going to Iceland. Which had been in his general five year plan. In fact, everything about tonight so far had been in line with his general five year plan. Only the life he had actually lived, his life in Night Vale, with Cecil, was missing.

 

* * *

 

_“Your call could not be connected as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.”_

 

Back in his room, Carlos dialed the number again. He knew it was futile but there was an odd buzzing, despairing sort of hope that was largely fueled by the last drink he had thrown down after the fifth person had congratulated him on the grant.

 

_“Your call could not be connected as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.”_

 

Frustrated, Carlos threw his phone in the general direction of the desk. Sinking down onto his bed, he buried his head in his hands. What was he going to do? Even if he found out who or what had made Night Vale vanish, what then? What could he do? The only thing he had been able to accomplish tonight was learn that without Night Vale, he was doing quite well.

 

 _I could just pick up and move to Iceland,_ he thought hysterically. Carlos laughed because it was almost too painfully possible. He could live this life and there would barely be a mark that anything was wrong. At least not externally. Internally, Carlos already felt a crater opening up somewhere in his chest. Was this his life now? Had it always been?

 

After awhile, Carlos realized there was a glow coming from his laptop. His phone was lying on the keyboard where he had tossed it, the jostle waking the machine up from its sleep mode. The familiar generic blue background of the desktop was marred by one icon that was sitting smack in the middle of the screen. When Carlos hovered the mouse over it, he saw it was an MP3 file labeled “11-14-12.”

 

That definitely had not been there earlier in the afternoon or even before then. He double clicked on it.

 

“Are you recording this conversation?” he heard his own recorded voice ask. “I didn’t…I don’t think I can give an interview…”

 

“I always have my recorder. As a reporter, it’s my solemn duty to keep accurate records of the truth to share with my listeners.”

 

_Cecil…_

 

It was Cecil. Carlos could recognize the voice anywhere and now could tell from its tone what he couldn’t tell back then, at least not immediately. That this had been Cecil’s way of trying to flirt with him.

 

“I won’t play it on air if that’s what has you nervous. I can merely summarize though I can tell you right now that you have nothing to be nervous about. You would sound wonderful on air. You have the perfect voice for radio, believe me!”

 

“Uh…you had a question for me?”

 

“Yes! It seems that Night Vale experienced an earthquake this past week that reached 9.7 on the Richter scale.”

 

“Right. Yes. Our machines here had registered the same thing.”

 

“And yet, none of us have any recollection of feeling any kind of tectonic shift. Thoughts?”

 

“Err…well…” Carlos could hear the awkwardness in his own tone in sharp contrast to the ease with which Cecil spoke. He remembered this conversation. He had been eating lunch alone at the Moonlit All-Nite diner when Cecil had appeared in the seat across from him, apologizing for interrupting his meal and saying he had some science-related questions for him before shoving a recorder in his face. He remembered Cecil nodding along with an encouraging smile while he had given a halting explanation that had been more musings than an actual answer.

 

“Wow! It sounds like quite the scientific mystery,” Cecil enthused. The excitement in his voice was so palpable that Carlos was flooded with several other memories of Cecil sounding just like that, so pleased and happy and brimming over with life. “By the way, where did you get your shirt? It fits you really well.”

 

Hearing the question now, Carlos laughed even as his vision blurred, his eyes prickling and hot. His recorded self ignored the query entirely, saying he’d check his computer models for the earthquake issue before saying a quick goodbye and leaving. Because back then he had thought Cecil was strange, like the town. Strange and possibly insane. Also like the town.

 

He could hear Cecil cheerily saying goodbye to him as Carlos had slid out of his seat, the scrape of vinyl as he left the booth. Cecil sighed in his wake. “Lovely, perfect Carlos. Oh! Joe, I’ll take a slice of the imaginary cherry pie to go. Thanks!”

 

The file ended.

 

Carlos stared at the screen, blinking back the tears that had unexpectedly formed. This was real. Cecil was real and so was Night Vale. Both of them were out there somewhere. Carlos just had to find them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation in the sound file was referenced in Episode 6 "Wheat & Wheat-By-Products" of the podcast.


End file.
